What does not kill you makes you stronger?

I have long been a Quickbooks user. Once you are set up, it is a low maintenance path to keeping books, quarterly and annual reporting.

But 2-3 times a year I get irritated with Intuit, the publisher.

a) One of the times is now, with need to print W-2s for employees and 1099s for contractors. In this day of laser printers and sharp scissors, Intuit employees post comments in community forums like “The reason to purchase perforated paper is that is satisfies the requirement that the different copies be "easily separable by employees" (Of course, if they are already separated, then that is really easy for the employees.) And, the perforated paper looks nice and is very professional.” And their web store gladly sells them at 10 forms for $ 49.99 or 25 for $ 79.99. Man, that must be some expensive, bio-engineered chemical on those forms. In contrast, the IRS will ship, upon request, small quantities for free.

b) The QuickBooks annual payroll service, ordered in their cloud went up last year by 10% to $ 329. It makes even more sense to go to Amazon and order the same functionality on disk in a box for $ 129. Tell me that makes sense to Intuit when web delivery cost should be near zero.

c) Every few years. their payroll functionality will not work with a prior QB release. It is a forced upgrade for $ 300-400. Irritatingly, the last upgrade we did with Pro 2011 came with all kinds of product promotions. Things regularly pop up offering their credit cards, mobile services and yes, more paper in the form of checks and other forms.

None of this is a killer, but when you look at millions of small businesses with a handful of employees, it adds up. But hey, I guess we should just sing with Kelly Clarkson and stand a little taller on the leftover forms you bought from Intuit:)

Comments

I have long been a Quickbooks user. Once you are set up, it is a low maintenance path to keeping books, quarterly and annual reporting.

But 2-3 times a year I get irritated with Intuit, the publisher.

a) One of the times is now, with need to print W-2s for employees and 1099s for contractors. In this day of laser printers and sharp scissors, Intuit employees post comments in community forums like “The reason to purchase perforated paper is that is satisfies the requirement that the different copies be "easily separable by employees" (Of course, if they are already separated, then that is really easy for the employees.) And, the perforated paper looks nice and is very professional.” And their web store gladly sells them at 10 forms for $ 49.99 or 25 for $ 79.99. Man, that must be some expensive, bio-engineered chemical on those forms. In contrast, the IRS will ship, upon request, small quantities for free.

b) The QuickBooks annual payroll service, ordered in their cloud went up last year by 10% to $ 329. It makes even more sense to go to Amazon and order the same functionality on disk in a box for $ 129. Tell me that makes sense to Intuit when web delivery cost should be near zero.

c) Every few years. their payroll functionality will not work with a prior QB release. It is a forced upgrade for $ 300-400. Irritatingly, the last upgrade we did with Pro 2011 came with all kinds of product promotions. Things regularly pop up offering their credit cards, mobile services and yes, more paper in the form of checks and other forms.

None of this is a killer, but when you look at millions of small businesses with a handful of employees, it adds up. But hey, I guess we should just sing with Kelly Clarkson and stand a little taller on the leftover forms you bought from Intuit:)